Restrict flat view subfolders

I have a folder which contains about 30 subfolders. I wouild like to get a flat view, but omit including the contents of a few of these subfolders. I tired using Checkbox Mode, and not checking the subfolders I want to leave out, but that did not seem to work.

Is there a way to do what I want?

You could drag all folders in question into a collection & then run a flatview on that, if that´s practicable.

Flatview doesn't work in collections :frowning:...

+1 for this as well btw, to be able to filter out ~some folders before enabling flatview, and have them remain filtered after enabling flatview. Leo or Jon have commented in the past about not doing this for some particular reason, that the results don't turn out as expected in some cases - or so I recall.

I don't know what a "collection" is. But I could of course temporarily remove the unwanted subfolders. or move the wanted ones into a new folder, and then run FLATVIEW there.

I was hoping that my test of using checkboxes would work - but it did not.

So, how about my CHECK BOX approach as a new feature in OPUS in the future. It seems like the coding to do that would not be very complex.

And then I'd have to rate OPUS on the 1-10 scale as a 13. :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

You can do it these days, just use the filter bar (* key) and there is a checkbox for filtering folders when in Flat View.

Hi Leo,

Thanks for your reply

I do see the ability to filter by file extension. But I do not see the checkbox you noted to filter subfolders.

And, can multiple extensions be specified?

Also, when doing a search, I often may spcify the file search name as *.TXT. Can I use several extensions there, and if so, can this be done by comma separators, or ???

Ron

The checkbox won't appear unless you are in flat view mode.

Use *.(txt|doc|jpg) to match multiple extensions.

LEO,

Sorry, I do not see the ability to filter in Flat View Mode.

I click on "Flat View".

Then I hit the * key which is (shift + 8)

I see the toolbar at the bottom, and there is a small checkbox with with the label "Filter Folders in Flat View". So I check that.

But nothing happens. I tried then clicking on "Check Box Mode" on one of my toolbars, but ho check boxes show up.

So, where am I going wrong?

Ron

Check-Box Mode is unrelated to Flat View and filtering. Forget about that entirely or you'll confuse yourself. :slight_smile:

Turn on Flat View.

Push * to open the Filter Bar.

Turn on the Filter Folders In Flat View checkbox on the Filter Bar.

(The part you're missing:) Type a wildcard into the Filter Bar which excludes the folders you want to exclude.

What the wildcard needs to be will depend on what you're trying to filter out, and what you want to filter in. Showing us some examples is probably best if you need help with that.

[quote="Ron Hirsch"]I see the toolbar at the bottom, and there is a small checkbox with with the label "Filter Folders in Flat View". So I check that.

But nothing happens. I tried then clicking on "Check Box Mode" on one of my toolbars, but ho check boxes show up.

So, where am I going wrong?[/quote]
...which is why my "ask" around this capability was:

...so, as Leo has pointed out, once you're ~already in Flat View mode, this checkbox becomes available. The reason this isn't ideal though - is because I (and presumably others that would want to do this at all) probably want to filter some folders out BEFORE enabling Flat View mode in order to prevent the contents I want to filter from ~getting in the way, of whatever it is I'm trying to figure out in flatview. By enabling flatview ~first, I'm not getting the benefit of filtering out the clutter I want to do away with in the first place. Don't get me wrong. I still use the filtering ability post-enabling flatview... but it's really not ideal for the reasons you'd want to use folder filtering in flatview to begin with. That's a generalization of course, but I think it's true in ~most cases where you'd have this need/want.

@Ron Hirsch: I don't think anybody said anything about "check boxes" showing up after you hit the "Filter Folders in Flat View"... that's not supposed to happen AFAIK. But once you DO check in the "Filter Folders in Flat View" you can use other methods to filter things out... for example - once that option on the filter bar is enabled, I can then use my custom hotkey that runs "select nopattern hidesel" in order to filter out folders I don't want to see in flatview.

SIDE NOTE: I juuuust had a need to use this a few minutes ago, and I'm noticing issues. I'll log a separate topic to raise it up though I suppose.

Yes, that would make a lot of sense. See also [url]Suggestion: partial flat view]

Yes, that would make a lot of sense. See also [url]Suggestion: partial flat view][/quote]

Turn on Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: flatview_folder_filters and it will work how you want.

Now, let's stick to trying to help Ron, please. I expect this is confusing enough as it is without all of these asides.

In my situation, I was trying to filter out some subfolders. Then re the filtering of extensions, I wanted everything which was *.MP3. But I don't really need a filter for that, as I would just sort the results by file type, and then I could select all the MP3 files for copying elsewhere.

I went into the preferences, and the FlatView_Folder_Filters was set to False. So I changed that to True. Now, when I went into FlatView on a lister, if I used a jpg filter, only jpg files showed. But when the Fliter checkbox was checked, the Lister went blank. I guess that was related to to some folder selectdioon process, which I could not see how to do

I'm afraid I did not see how to select which folders I wanted to exclude (or include)

Ron, you probably do not want to set flatview_folder_filters to true; I would put it back to false. The suggestion of changing that was just for Steje and Abr.

The reason you see a blank lister when you use *.mp3 and have flatview folder filtering turned on is because none of your folders will match the *.mp3 pattern, so they and everything in them will be filtered out. This is why flat view filtering is disabled by default, since it confuses almost everyone. :slight_smile:

Flat view filtering is still what you need to use, but keeping it off by default means you don't accidentally use it by accident and hide things without intending to.

Now, you'll need to type in a wildcard which hides the folders you don't want to see, and doesn't hide anything else.

What the wildcard needs to be will depend on what you're trying to filter out, and what you want to filter in. Showing us some examples is probably best if you need help with that.

Hi Leo,

Thansk for all your help in the "Flat View" actiities in Opus.

I have a better understanding of the situation there now, but it does seem that the Flat View area could use some "changes", as I fiond it confusing.

Just one last question, and I wont be bothering you any further. When you refer to "filtering", it is not clear filters in or out, or both. The various mesages seem to imply that both activities are possible. But from what I've seen, the filtering is selecting things to be inlcluded. Also, I can understand the filtering of files via file extensions, but filtering folders in/out, which was implied in your recent message, still escapes me. And how to include or exclude also escapes me.

Presently, what is the specific procedure to exclude folders, if I had a group of folders where I wanted to keep them from having their files show in the Flat View.

It would seem that to filter either in or out, possibly things could be coded such that a + sign means included, and a - sign means excluded.

I am going to carefully read over the manual sections involving Flat View and Filtering, and hopefully clear the air more for me on this topic.

Thanks again

Ron

Ron

Wildcards can say "give me all the things with this pattern" but they can also do the opposite: "Give me all the things that don't match this pattern".

e.g. .jpg will match all JPG files. ~(.jpg) will match everything except JPG files.

~(Some Folder Name) will exclude anything below "Some Folder Name" as well as the folder itself.

Explaining this in abstract terms is difficult, which is why I've asked for some examples. If you give us an example of what you're looking at and what you want to filter in/out, we can give back an example of the wildcard to use. Then things will be clearer.

Hi Leo,

I assumed that you were in Australia. But it would appear that you are in the US eastern time zone.

Thanks for your reply. I think I now understand the way to include or exclude. That is something new to me. Is this a "universal" protocol, or just in Opus?

If I have 3 folders which I do not want to include, I guess the following would be the filter string if the folders were named Trip1_Jan, Trip2_Feb, and Trip3_Mar, and they were the only folders whose name started with "Trip".
~Trip*.*

And, if they were the only folders I wanted to include, it would be
Trip*.*

And, as you noted, to include these 3 extensions, it would be
*.(txt|doc|jpg)

To exclude then
~*.(txt|doc|jpg)

Can I also inlcude several include and exclude statements in the same filter? If yess, do I need any special separators, such as a space or waht?

Ron

I'm in England, although it's difficult to say what my effective timezone is. :slight_smile:

It won't work in everything, but it will work in some other things.

[quote]If I have 3 folders which I do not want to include, I guess the following would be the filter string if the folders were named Trip1_Jan, Trip2_Feb, and Trip3_Mar, and they were the only folders whose name started with "Trip".
~Trip*.*[/quote]

You may need brackets, and you should not include the .* as the folder names do not have dots or extensions in them.

So this is what you could use:

~(Trip*)

Using that as a filter in Flat View may have unwanted effects, though. It will also filter out any files with names like Trip01.jpg

You'd be better off using

~(Trip1_Jan|Trip2_Feb|Trip3_Mar)

That is safer, since you're unlikely to have files called any of those three names.

[quote]And, as you noted, to include these 3 extensions, it would be
*.(txt|doc|jpg)

To exclude then
~*.(txt|doc|jpg)[/quote]

You probably need the extra brackets again:

~(*.(txt|doc|jpg))

That gets quite difficult if you're trying to do that in a single wildcard expression.

To do complex filtering, filtering some things in and other things out, I would use the Find tool (Tools -> Find Panel) instead of trying to use filtering and Flat View. With the Find tool you can break things down and create complex rules much more easily.